Hunter Gatherers Dietary Needs! great logic on ideal human diet

LEan game, low carbs diet - good logicA Diet Solution Based on Evolution

By Loren Cordain, Ph.D.

The scientific community almost unanimously agrees that the diseases and disorders that plague Western civilization - obesity, cardiovascular disease, and Type II diabetes - are related to our diets ... and that they are avoidable. But nutritional experts are in complete disagreement over which type of diet is best for prevention and treatment.
Obviously, the highly processed foods that now dominate the American diet weren't part of the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) meal plan. Hunter-gatherers probably wouldn't have recognized pizza, chips, French fries, ice cream, soda, and the like as food at all.

Stone-Agers Living in the Space Age

Although we live in a world of vast cities and complex technologies, each of us has a Stone Age genetic makeup. DNA studies from diverse ethnic groups around the world confirm that the present-day human genome is virtually identical to that of humans living 40,000 years ago.

Beginning some 10,000 years ago, people left behind the hunting and gathering way of life and began to sow and harvest the genetic forerunners of today's wheat and barley. Shortly thereafter, these early farmers domesticated farm animals. Five thousand years later, the so-called Agricultural Revolution had spread from the Middle East to Northern Europe and beyond.

But there has been very little time, evolutionarily speaking, for our bodies to adapt to this new way of eating. Although 10,000 years sounds historically remote, it is evolutionarily quite recent. Only 500 human generations have come and gone since agriculture began.

Lean game and fish were their staple foods. Consequently, the Paleolithic diet was much higher in protein than the typical U.S. diet. Because game is so lean on a calorie-by-calorie basis, it contains about 2.5 times as much protein per serving as domestic meats. For instance, a 100-calorie serving of America's favorite meat - hamburger - contains a paltry 7.8 grams of protein. Compare that with 19.9 grams in an identical 100-calorie serving of roasted buffalo. Game is also healthier. It contains two to three times more cholesterol-lowering polyunsaturated fats and almost five times more omega-3 fatty acids than meat from grain-fed domestic livestock.

The carbohydrate content in the average hunter-gatherer diet was extremely low. More important, it was made up almost entirely of wild fruits and vegetables. Their total fat content was similar to or slightly higher than current U.S. figures, and consisted of healthful, cholesterol-lowering monounsaturated fats, which comprised about 50 percent of total fats consumed. In contrast, the typical U.S. diet has less cholesterol-lowering mono- and polyunsaturated fats, more artery-clogging saturated fats and trans-fats, and seven to 10 times less heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids than in hunter-gatherer diets.

The key to the optimal human diet lies in the evolutionary wisdom of our hunter-gatherer past. The best high-protein options are fish (particularly fatty northern fish such as salmon, halibut, mackerel, and herring), shellfish, grass-fed beef and pork, free-range chicken and turkey, rabbit, and any kind of game, either bought or hunted. (The gastronomically adventurous can find buffalo, ostrich, emu, kangaroo, and venison at many upscale supermarkets and health food stores.)

Putting It All Together

The Paleo Diet is the unique diet to which our species is genetically adapted. This program of eating was not designed by diet doctors, faddists, or nutritionists, but by evolution and natural selection. It is based upon extensive scientific research examining the types and quantities of foods our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate.

With readily available modern foods, the Paleo Diet mimics the types of foods every single person on the planet ate prior to the Agricultural Revolution (a mere 500 generations ago). These foods (fresh fruits, vegetables, lean meats and seafood) are high in the beneficial nutrients (soluble fiber, antioxidant vitamins, phytochemicals, omega-3 and monounsaturated fats, and low-glycemic carbohydrates) that promote good health. And they are low in the nutrients (refined sugars and grains, saturated and trans-fats, salt, and high-glycemic carbohydrates) that frequently cause weight gain, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and numerous other health problems.

You might consider it heretical to believe that lean meat is healthful while whole grains and dairy products are not necessarily so. But the basis for this conclusion comes from overwhelming evolutionary evidence that is increasingly being substantiated by human, animal, and tissue studies.

We all remain hunter-gatherers, displaced in time, yet still genetically adapted to a diet dominated by lean meats and fresh fruits and veggies.